A Portrait of Time

By Sozuki

Chapter Two

Harry groaned when his pillow decided to move without his consent. He shifted a bit to get more comfortable on the hard surface he was sleeping on, but that plan was blown when he pillow decided that the shifting was not to be had, and practically threw him from its presence. Catching himself before his head hit the stone floor, he glared up at his 'pillow' and readjusted his oval thin framed glasses he had bought before he went to Diagon Alley to get his school supplies for his last year at Hogwarts.

Draco turned to him suddenly, grabbing the front of his shirt and lifting him to a sitting position mirroring his own. Getting in Harry's face, Draco yelled.

"POTTER!" Draco started to shake him. "What in the name of Merlin did you just do?!" Harry grabbed Draco's arms and shoved them off him before he was shook to death.

"First of all, I didn't do anything. Second, what are you talking about, Draco?" Rubbing his forehead, he finally took a look around.

They were where they were before, but things were slightly different.

For instance, there was a nice rug in front of the fireplace and there where many more books on the shelfs that had been slightly bare before. The room seemed much brighter and had a more lived in feel to it, but there was no one there but themselves.

"'What am I talking about?'! Look at where we are! This room may look the same, but it sure as hell isn't!" Looking around the room again, Draco sighed and muttered to himself. "I knew I should have stayed in bed today."

"You and me both." Harry replied to his friends mutterings and climbed to his feet, brushing the would-be dirt off his pants. "This place does seem cleaner though. I wonder what happened."

"Don't you remember that Time Turner?" Draco asked, rising to his feet as well. Turning, he faced the painting. His eyes widened as he took in the sight before him.

The Time Turner was there in the painting, but it wasn't what it looked like before. Before, it was a beautiful painting that showed that even inanimate objects can be portrayed as beautiful if not eye catching. The Time Turner was in the same position as when it moved; upside down. But now it was broken and draining down from the painting and onto the stone floor was a pile of sand.

"Harry? Are you sure you didn't do something?" Harry was now standing beside him watching the sand fall with a blank look on his face. Not tearing his gaze away from the still gathering sand, he could see him nod out of the corner of his eye.

"What do you think happened?" Draco tried asking, hoping what he was thinking was wrong. He remembered the painting moving and there had been runes on on the floor as well as a bright flash of light, but after that, he didn't remember a thing. He assumed he must have passed out.

"I'll tell you what I think happened, but I am going to hope that you will prove me wrong." Harry sighed. "The painting is of a Time Turning, and possibly with the mention of traveling through time, we might have activated it some how, resulting in us heading back in time."

Draco was silent for a moment before he sighed as well.

"That's what I think happened as well." He paused. "Hey! Wait a minute! You were the one that mentioned something about going back in time! I said nothing of the sort! This is all your fault."

"I was trying to make conversation." He glared.

"Okay, look." Draco rubbed his temples. "We wont figure anything out if we just stand here and argue."

Looking around again, Harry realized that their bags had been brought with them. Squatting down by his bag, he opened it and started digging through it. Pulling out the Marauders map, he activated it and stood. His eyes widened and he began to shake. The map fell from his loose fingers and he began to pace.

Draco, worried what had caused his friend to act in such a way, rushed forward and grabbed the map from the floor.

There were many names running about the place that he didn't recognize, but that wasn't what caught his attention and gripped it for dear life.

Four names stood out above the rest.

Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor, and Salazar Slytherin were gathered together in what would be the headmasters office in the future.

He raised his hands to his temples again and sighed in frustration.

"What are we going to do?" Harry asked, still pacing in circles around the room. "They obviously know we are here, the castle must have alerted them of some type of intrusion. We're as good as dead!" He grabbed handfuls of his hair and started to pull. "What reason would they have to believe us if we told them we are from the future?" Growling, Harry flopped down backwards onto the couch.

Walking over to the couch so he could properly see him, he debated whether or not to shove Harry's legs over so he could sit. Changing his mind altogether, he plopped down on Harry's stomach, causing the teen to grunt at the added weight.

"Let's take a look at our options, shall we?" Draco started, leaning against the back of the couch. "What do we have with us?"

"We have the Marauders Map, school books that contain information that probably isn't even available yet, two wands, one pain in the ass Slytherin, and a headache." He covered his eyes with his arms.

"Ha bloody ha, Potter. You don't happen to have your invisibility cloak, would you?"

"If I did, I would have mentioned it."

"Just checking."

Neither of them said anything else for the remainder of the hour. Harry kept his eyes covered and Draco kept an eye on the map, watching as the Founders were searching different sections of the school individually.

"We can't stay in here forever, Harry."

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

"I don't know! I don't usually get into these types of situations!" Draco growled and crossed his arms.

There was a brief pause.

"We could go to the library." Harry suggested, peaking out from underneath his arms. "Hermione always went to the library when we had problems. She always seemed to find something useful there. Maybe we can find a book on how to get back."

"How do you expect us to get to the library if there are students and teachers everywhere? Not to mentioned four blood thirsty Founders."

"Dinner should be starting in the next hour. We can sneak off while everyone is off eating, then we can grab some books. We're students here as well, there should be a problem."

"We're students from a thousand years in the future. Of course there will be a problem."

"Well, do you have a better idea?" When Draco shook his head, Harry nodded slightly and recovered his eyes. "Wake me if anything happens."

Draco rolled his eyes and nodded, even though he couldn't see it.

---

After an hour of looking through the books on the shelfs on either side of the fireplace, Draco reluctantly shook the tired teens shoulder to wake him.

Most of the students were at dinner and no one was around the third floor corridor, so they escaped off to the library, leaving their bags behind. Harry kept an eye on the map in case one of the Founders decided to change their current search area as well as keep an eye out for any stray students not attending dinner.

They only had to duck behind a couple statues before they finally made it to the library. The librarian of this time was no where to be seen, so they took that to their advantage.

They were so involved in their search for books on time travel and Time Turners, that they had forgotten about the map. So it was too late to run when they heard voices coming from the entrance.

Turning to face each other, the grabbed the couple books they could carry and still run with.

"Godric, we've already checked here. We'll never find out who breached the wards if we keep going in circles." A deep silky voice said, causing Harry to jump at how close they were. They were maybe two bookshelf's in front of them.

Another, who must have been Godric, groaned. "I told you, Salazar. A couple paintings saw a couple suspicious characters running around and dodging students left and right." His voice, although deep, held a distinctly lighter tone than his companion's.

Draco quickly waved Harry over to the other end of the shelfs and Harry stumbled as he tripped over one of the piles of books they gathered. They hid themselves behind the ends just as Godric and Salazar whipped around the corner to see what had caused the noise.

Harry held his breath and looked towards Draco, his eyes shining in distress. Draco motioned for them to try and run for the door. As quietly as they could, the ran around the shelfs separating them from the two Founders. Before they could get past the last row of shelfs and make a run for the door, Harry heard a quiet hiss. He was surprised he could hear anything over the pounding of his heart.

That hiss had apparently alerted the two men of the escapees that were near the exit.

As they sprinted out the door, the two men only caught a glimpse of a pair of black school robes, and the back of two heads. One a messy mop of black, the other a rather disheveled blonde.

Godric and Salazar both raced for the doors, but once they reached them the two boys were nowhere to be seen.

There was another hiss as a snake slithered out of its hiding place around Salazar's neck.

"I can still smell them. I will lead the way, master."

Salazar nodded and allowed his snake, Sasha, to slide down his body and pool herself onto the floor.

"Godric, you go and gather Helga and Rowena. I'll meet up with you later." Godric nodded and watched as Salazar took off after Sasha who was slithering up ahead.

'Aren't I usually the one who goes rushing off into things?'Godric questioned himself as he ran off to find Helga and Rowena.

---

They were almost back up to the third floor corridor. Though, they didn't have the luck they had while getting down to the library. They had passed quite a few students, not bothering to hid themselves until they got closer to their room, which told them that dinner was coming to a close.

Rounding the corner from the last staircase to the third floor, the leaned against the wall and panted. No one, it seems, went down that corridor. This past was very much like the future in that respect.

"What a great idea, Potter." Draco said, gasping for air. "Not only were we sucked back in time, but now we're stealing books."

"We'll give them back!" Harry defended before taking a deep breath and holding it for a second, trying to regulate his breathing.

"We forgot about the paintings." Draco murmured.

Harry nodded and leaned his head back against the wall. His headache was strongly re announcing itself, causing him to wince.

"We should head back." Draco pushed away from the wall, still clutching the two books he held.

"Yea."

They got as far as Draco opening the door to their temporary hideout when he heard a gasp.

'It figures that we wouldn't be able to make it.' Draco thought with a sigh.

A snake had slithered it's way up Harry's leg and was now making itself comfortable around his neck. Though, not at all in a friendly way.

Draco reached for his wand--

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" That silky voice from before traveled down the corridor. Both Harry and Draco whipped their head around to face their to-be captor.

He stood around average hight for a man around his mid-late twenties. He had long ebony hair that just barely brushed past his shoulders. He had on dark forest green robes which had gold clasps and a dark green belt, just a shade darker than his robes. His deep chocolate brown eyes shined sadistically in the dimly lit hall.

"Great." Draco muttered, but still slipped his wand into his hand.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Their to-be captor smirked.

Draco turned when Harry gasped as the snake started to tighten around his neck. Turning back, Draco glared at the wand that was pointed in his direction.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harry open his mouth to speak. How Draco knew, just knew, that Harry would try talking to the snake, he didn't know. But he did stop him from doing so.

"Potter." He growled, not taking his eyes away from the man in front of him. Harry had seemed to get the hint, but still glared at him all the same.

Another man ran from around the corner and stopped at the sight before him.

He had shaggy light brown hair that hung almost bothersome around his eyes and brushed the back of his neck. He was the same height as the man dressed in green and had similar clothing, only a dark shade of red. His light blue eyes brightened when he saw the other man.

"There you are! What did I miss?" He sounded almost ... excited.

---

I would have had this out much sooner, but I had laptop problems. Still do, actually. So now I have to write it and then type it, since I do most of my writing on the bus.

First, I want to thank all of you who reviewed and even those who didn't review but are watching the story for updates. Thank you all so much! I'll try and get chapter three out as soon as possible!

And again: Please let me know if you see any errors that need to be corrected.